THOMPSON CENTER — A small, state-run museum tucked into the Thompson Center has shuttered its current exhibit more than two weeks early as it braces for budget cuts that could shut it down entirely.
Monday is the last day the Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery at 100 W. Randolph St. will run its latest exhibit, "Footprints Through Time: Artists Inspired by History," which was scheduled to close July 10. By Friday afternoon, some of the exhibit's collection was already taken down so the pieces could be returned to their owners.
Just hooks and some wire. [All photos by DNAinfo/David Matthews]
The exhibit is a casualty of sweeping state budget cuts Governor Bruce Rauner proposed earlier this month as he attempts to plug a $1.5 billion budget deficit.
The Illinois State Museum system is on the chopping block, but no date has been set for the shutdown, said Chris Young, a spokesman for the state's Department of Natural Resources. Rauner and state lawmakers are currently negotiating a budget for the state's next fiscal year beginning July 1.
Still, state-run galleries including the one Downtown are beginning to return borrowed museum items to their owners before the end of the fiscal year, anticipating they will be cut in next year's budget. Closing the state's museum system would reap $4.8 million in projected savings, Young said.
"They're making preparations," he said. "It's just a process right now."
Jacob Gaddie, a store manager in the Thompson Center gallery, said the Downtown museum is returning artwork and preparing to close because it does not own any of the items in its collection, declining to comment further.
The museum has also closed its monthly Illinois Artisans market, where vendors sell their wares in the Thompson Center. Friday marked the last such market, which had been running since 1985.
William Kamar and his cigar box guitars.
One of the vendors is William Kamar, a Chicagoan who makes guitars out of cigar boxes. Kamar does not have his own store and Friday marked just his second, and last, artisan market after he was accepted by the program's jury this year.
"It's good to show handmade things," Kamar said. "It's a useful thing and I'm disappointed [the market] is shutting down."
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